Americans Flocked to RedNote as the TikTok Ban Loomed. Will the Party Last?

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Hello everybody, We're from TikTok from America.

What's up, new friends, Thanks for letting us across the party you're at Little red Book.

I would like to welcome all my fellow Americans to shaohong Shu.

Last week, as the US ban on TikTok drew closer, it's one hundred and seventy million American users. We're forced to face the fact that they might be kicked off their favorite social media app, and in a surprising turn of events, they began flocking to another Chinese social media platform, shao hong Shu, also known as Red Note. Hiaoung Shu's nice to meet you. Thanks for taking me me and oh my friends, I hope we don't break you. These

TikTok refugee here, Hello, my fellow Tektok refugees.

For those who aren't familiar, Shao Hoangshu looks a lot like Instagram, and the app is hosting almost unheard of interactions between Chinese and American medicines.

This is probably the biggest public to public social exchange between Chinese and Americans since the two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics.

Gal Yuan is a Bloomberg technology reporter based in Singapore.

Before this, Saga and Shahunshu, we are not seeing too many opportunities for people from China and the US to directly communicate to each other. The only way for people inside China is to use VPN to get across the Great Firewall so that they can browse Google, Instagram, or Facebook, and this technology is only reserved to the tech savvy.

China's Internet Firewall is designed to restrict Chinese citizens' access to any content that the government deems sensitive, and foreign websites like Google and Facebook are blocked in mainland China. The controls had effectively prevented Chinese medicines from having direct information exchanged with the outside world, but now the threat

It's the first time that people from China and the people from the US are having a chance to actually talk online to each other without any barriers. It's something that would excite people from China and app belief also from the US.

This surge of TikTok exiles might, on the face of it, look like a good thing for Shaohong Sshu. More users mean more eyeballs and traffic for the company, but all those good things come with a high degree of risk for the Chinese app.

They all need to manage the contents on the app, and it's going to be tough because they have never experienced this surge of non Chinese speaking posts. If the government is see is the contents on Shahoungshu are not being properly managed, they would do something. You don't want the government to step in and say, hey, you have to delete something that is not fitting the Chinese law.

Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha. Every week we take you inside some of the world's biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show, the American TikTok users jumping ship for another Chinese app. What does this mean for shao hung Shu and with you as President Donald Trump now delaying the TikTok ban,

I am Brecking Newman. I am thirty one years old, and I am currently a realtor in the state of Mississippi. I'm in the city golf Port Reckon.

How long have you been using TikTok?

Probably like five or six years. I just kind of go on there and put content every now and then, and I've posted a couple videos of like home tours. There was a rental that my wife and I bought that was like completely destroyed, so I did like a before and after video on there, but pretty much just like family stuff with me, my daughter, my wife, my dogs.

Oh nice. So when did you actually join Shaohunkshoe.

I joined Shaohunkshu like it was it's been like forty eight hours. Probably it's only been like two days. I just was scrolling through TikTok and they were like, hey, everybody, go check out red Note and what brought you there to be honest, it was just the fact that it was something different. If I get on Instagram, it's going to be the same thing I see on Facebook here x. I literally just wanted to join and meet people because it's like I don't judge a book by its cover

Well and describe to me your first post on shaham Shue.

So it is a picture of my daughter and I. It was from like a Christmas event that we went to. We were just walking around looking at Christmas lights and I just decided to post it. I was like, hello from America. Nice to meet everybody, coming over here to make friends, see cultures. And then the first family to really see it was this beautiful family that I'm now best friends with. They're in Shanghai, and their daughter's name

And that post just blew up overnight, right it made its way to x as well.

Yep, someone ended up taking a picture of me and Tutu's family and it got onto X. I think it's got like over eight million views right now. And like I just posted it, I wasn't expecting nothing from it, and then I get on shaw and Shoe again and I was like, holy smokes. You know, there's so many people commenting and liking sharing pictures of their families, which was awesome. I think that was really great, just seeing everybody come together. Everybody was getting emotional and everyone was

Now you're posting a lot on shawan Shu and interacting with new friends, are you at all concerned about giving personal information to an app owned by a Chinese company?

So the reason they're trying to get rid of TikTok, they're saying it's Chinese own, and you know, Chinese are stealing our data, and it's like none of us really care because our data is being sold everywhere anyways, so it's like we might as well continue on, like we don't worry about it.

So data security aside. What about censorship on shaw Hoanschhu. How familiar are you with China's censorship system.

I'm not gonna lie, I don't know too much about it. In terms of Chinese censorship. I think the only thing that I really knew not to talk about was government stuff. So I was like, let me just stay away from that in general. Right when everything started going viral, everyone's like, hey, don't post this, don't post that. Here in America when people go to the gym, they're like half naked, They're like, hey, don't do that here. Don't post links, don't talk about

And I bet that's something that Chinese users on sha Honshu really appreciate. Now with so many American users on Chahanshu if China were to clamp down or find a way to segregate US and Chinese users, or if like TikTok, the US government ends up wanting to ban Chauhankshu. How would you feel about those kinds of controls.

That would be a little sad, to be honest, because I've talked to a couple other people about that on the app. Especially of course, like I said, I've been making quite a bit of friends, so it's like that would suck to be able to lose that communication with them to an extent. But I mean I've officially downloaded we chat. Oh really Yeah, we've been connecting that way, which has been great. T two and her her mother, we're best friends. Now we're already talking about visiting each

Wow, that's fantastic, Reckon says he and his family are thinking about visiting Q two's family in Shanghai as soon as March. He's excited to tour the city and see China for himself. After the break. How is Chao Hoon Shu handling this sudden influx of American users and will a party last. To better understand how unusual this exchanges between Chinese and American users on Chao hoang Shu, we talked to Gao Yuan, a Bloomberg Tech reporter in Singapore. Gao, how are you? Thanks for joining us?

I'm good, thanks for having me.

Now, Gao, do you use Shaooshu?

Yes?

I do.

Actually, it's my guilty pleasure. I think I used it maybe too much a week.

I know what you mean. I use it a lot too. Chao hong Shu is known by many Americans as a Chinese equivalent of Instagram, but Gao says it's much more than that.

The users get all kinds of contents and services from the app. They can post theory, travel photos, share videos, maybe find some restaurants, or chat with strangers, and some people do online shopping on Shahoonshu. So essentially, it's a hyper combination of many functionalities that you see on many apps from x, Instagram, clubhouse, Shane, and the beyond.

The name shau Honshu literally translates to Little Red Book, and before this app became a household name, if you asked the typical Chinese what Chao Honshu means. They would probably direct you to a particular little Red Book entitled Quotations from Chairman mount Zadan.

It's the name of a pamphlet with scarlet red cover full of Cherman Mountadon's quote collections. It was once a bible for the communist movement during the Culture Revolution in China in the nineteen sixties and seventies.

Chao Honshu's co founder, Mirandi Chu said the app was created originally to help people shop overseas. That's according to Chinese media reports. Chu said the color red is memorable and they wanted the app to serve as a guidebook for users, hence Little Red Book. And before American users began signing up, Chauanshu was already popular outside of mainland China in places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and most of the apps users are Mandarin speakers. But a

It's been crazy, to be honest, They have all kinds of questions asking the answered from like what you had for lunch, to jokes Taylor Swifts, even some aliens, so all kinds of topics that you can think of. One interesting topic was the cat or dog text Tessa, you're going to pay the cat taxt for red no washyer red notes meow.

Yes.

The Chinese people say, no, I don't have a hat tax, but I have a pub text here. Check this out. This is my tax.

I say hello, love you explain that to us.

I think Chinese people know that in America having a pety is very popular. They actually want to see the American family's pets. So basically, the American users on Shahuanshu they should pay dog or cat tax, because firstly they do on Shahuonshu once they created account, is to post the photos of their pets.

And how are Chinese users responding to these newcomers. Tikka refuge from your ass, welcome.

The childs, welcome to.

Visit China and not just will come here.

I really really hope you will stay.

I love you.

The Chinese users actions were extremely friendly and they are very accepting. I have to say most of the conversations or exchanges or were very very friendly. People did not mean any harm to each other and it's very beautiful.

These exchanges haven't been without friction. A lot of new joiners were challenged by the language barrier. Many found themselves disoriented by an entirely new social media platform, and to help them out, some Chinese users have organized live Q and A sessions for the newcomers, and they've been spreading guidelines in posts and comments. Top of the list of concerns making sure new users don't talk about sensitive topics

It's a lot more than that. It's our first amendment, right, that's at stake.

And immediately somebody in the room reminded.

Them, Oh, yeah, I know, I'm being careful, but like that's kind of the main that's the main issue here.

Now for the new users, who are overwhelmingly American, they're certainly not used to censorship. What do you think the Chinese government makes of this sudden influx of new users.

That's a very good question, as the government has been always saying the internety is not a land without law, So from China's perspective, the contents is the big risk for them. Remember this is a walled garden the Internet within the borders of a Mali in China, So essentially this flocks off American users from another platform. Somehow breaks the the Great Firewall. If the world no longer works in Shahuonshu's case right now, it has ever reason to cause some concerns.

It's not yet clear how Shaohangchu is managing this unexpected flood of TikTok converts, but there have been rumors about the company tinkering with the app's algorithm. Word is they're trying to segregate American users someone perhaps to forestall interference by the Chinese authorities. But it's not just the Chinese government Shaowangshu has to worry about. They may have to contend with what the US government might do too for Washington.

I think Shahunshu pusts a series of new challenges to the regulators in the US because this is a new app that probably have never thought of making some changes to regulate it. As we speak, there are so many American users retonstrating Shahumshu accounts. I was told they all

Now, goal do you think this Shaowangshu craze will last?

To be honest, I didn't expect this kind of freak exchange could survive its first twenty four hours, but it's already been going on for days. It's definitely has some lacks, but it's really hard to estimates what's going to happen next.

Shortly after taking office on Monday, President Trump issued an order to delay the ban on TikTok for seventy five days, meaning all those converts to Shahwangshu are now able to return to TikTok. But for now, a lot of them are saying that they feel like they've discovered a new digital home, even with the TikTok band being lifted in the US. I think I'm going to stick around if you'll let me stay. I'm staying here.

Red No is Yaohoangshou.

I love the energy, I love the community, I love the vibe.

I'm probable stay on Red No and also be on side because they're not about to play with me again. Okay, Red, No, Hey, sister. This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wan ha. This episode was produced by Young Young, Naomi Un and Jessica Beck. It was mixed by i'mer Sultan, sound designed by Jessica and fact checked by Naomi. It